{"id":102906,"date":"2021-10-22T11:41:10","date_gmt":"2021-10-22T15:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=102906"},"modified":"2021-10-22T11:41:32","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T15:41:32","slug":"smackdown-card-10-22-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/10\/22\/smackdown-card-10-22-21\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview: WWE SmackDown &#8212; New Rosters Officially Go Into Effect (10\/22\/21)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Friday night will be a major night for WWE as it will mark the official start of the new rosters on both Raw and SmackDown. The blue brand will get its first chance to show what they&#8217;re all about and coming off<em><strong> Crown Jewel<\/strong><\/em>, it will be an important night to make a good first impression. As the build to <em><strong>Survivor Series<\/strong><\/em> begins, how will the newest roster members mix with the returnees? Here&#8217;s a look at the SmackDown card for Friday.<\/p>\n<h2>SmackDown&#8217;s New Roster Takes Over<\/h2>\n<figure style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/r4vVYkL.jpg?1\" alt=\"SmackDown card -- New Roster\" width=\"700\" height=\"392\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">All Photos Credit: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>SmackDown has a new roster and it is one that screams opportunity. Looking at the roster that they drafted, only four total superstars who do not hold gold have had a world title match over the past year, furthering the fact that it&#8217;s time for the opportunists to take over. After all, SmackDown has been seen as the &#8220;Land of Opportunity&#8221; for years and there&#8217;s no better time than now for that to come true. Led by Universal Champion <strong>Roman Reigns<\/strong> and Raw Women&#8217;s Champion<strong> Charlotte Flair<\/strong>, SmackDown has two stars to lead a roster of uncertainty for the next year. When analyzing who could be the ones to step up, superstars like Ricochet and Naomi are instantly noticed. Add in the call-ups from NXT in <strong>Hit Row<\/strong>, <strong>Ridge Holland<\/strong>, <strong>Aliyah<\/strong>, and <strong>Xia Li<\/strong>, you hope someone is able to grab the opportunity and run with it.<\/p>\n<p>With <em>Survivor Series<\/em> being the next show to build around, it&#8217;s the best chance for the newest of faces to take the lead.<strong> Drew McIntyre<\/strong> and <strong>Sasha Banks<\/strong> should take over as leaders as well even without gold. There&#8217;s no guarantee as to who will rise to the top but it should be an interesting night to see how it all plays out.<\/p>\n<h2>The King Arrives<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/G32OnVA.jpg\" alt=\"Xavier Woods King of the Ring\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" \/><\/p>\n<p>All hail King <strong>Xavier Woods<\/strong>. At <em>Crown Jewel<\/em>, the boyhood dream <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/10\/21\/xavier-woods-king-of-the-ring\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">came true<\/a> for Woods as he defeated <strong>Finn Balor<\/strong> in the finals of the <em><strong>King of the Ring<\/strong><\/em> tournament to become WWE&#8217;s one true King. An emotional Woods discussed how following the match, it was still a surreal moment to him. There&#8217;s no guarantee as to what Woods might have in store for the rest of SmackDown but what we do know is that it should be must-see television.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/WWEonFOX\/status\/1451326315907280912?s=20<\/p>\n<h4><strong>More from LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/watch.wwe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WWE Network<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.peacocktv.com\/watch\/home\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Peacock<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friday night will be a major night for WWE as it will mark the official start of the new rosters on both Raw and SmackDown. The blue brand will get its first chance to show what they&#8217;re all about and coming off Crown Jewel, it will be an important night to make a good first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2921,"featured_media":102907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,4,3],"tags":[403,686,7917,77,551],"class_list":["post-102906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-smackdown","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","tag-charlotte-flair","tag-drew-mcintyre","tag-hit-row","tag-roman-reigns","tag-xavier-woods"],"modified_by":"Scott Edwards","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2921"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}